New way to turn off migraines....

Today's Post, Friday, 5-8-2009

The most encouraging thing I read about migraines before is that people who got them who did not exercise regularly, could cut the number of their migraines in half or more by beginning to exercise regularly and continuing to do so.

And, since exercise trains your blood vessels to expand and contract with the demands of exercise; & migraines are caused by atypical expansion and contraction of blood vessels in the brain, that made sense to me. (Our ancestors who we are all descended from virtually all got plenty of exercise over all the millions of years we evolved after all.)

So, even though this has been known for many years now, if you have migraines and want to have them less often and you don’t exercise, by all means begin to exercise every week soon & keep doing it each week.

Second, I read not long ago that people who get migraines were somewhat more likely to get heart attacks as they got older than people who didn’t. But even though this is consistent with the value of exercising regularly in preventing heart attacks, I wasn’t sure how knowing that might be useful.

But a few days ago, I was astounded to find out there is another connection. And, it’s one that can enable you to cut back the number of migraines you get even more.

A researcher found that giving people who got migraines a good B complex vitamin in addition to any more general multivitamin they were taking before got a lot fewer migraines. And, they then found out that it was the B6, B12, & folic acid in the B complex vitamins that did the job.

THAT is extremely good news AND helps explain the migraine and heart attack connection.

Those vitamins lower an animal protein breakdown product called homocysteine. If homocysteine is high it helps to cause heart disease and circulation problem related dementias – plus it speeds up aging. Perhaps the migraine connection is that by lowering it, you cut the amount of plaque build up in your blood vessels and improve the health of them and their inner layer called the endothelium. And that in turn allows your blood vessels to expand and contract more normally and with less pain when they do. (If your homocysteine is 9.0 or higher, and particularly if it’s well above 12.0, it is harmful & has these bad effects.)

Now, here’s why that’s such good news. While it’s true that taking 50 mg of B6, 1,000 micrograms of B12, and 800 to 1600 iu of folic acid a day will lower homocysteine, that’s just a start on what you can do to lower it to the 6.0 to 8.9 range that is much better for you. (You do have to be a bit careful of B6. Up to a total of 100 mg a day B6 is good for you. A bit above that may be. But 200 mg a day or more produces nerve damage in many people. So aim for a total of about 100 mg or bit less of B6.)

You can also take one or two tablets a day of 500 mg of TMG, Trimethylglycine, originally named betaine. (Jarrow makes an inexpensive TMG supplement that leaves out the HCL that gives some people heartburn and has no other active ingredients.) You can take one or two capsules a day of 500 mg of NAC, n-acetyl cysteine, in addition to the 3 B complex vitamins. Taking a multivitamin, a good B complex vitamin and the 3 B vitamins listed will lower homocysteine. Taking TMG will lower homocysteine. Taking NAC will lower homocysteine and increase a very powerful antioxidant called glutathione that has brain protective effects. If you do all three, you can lower homocysteine a lot.

But there is still more you can do to lower homocysteine. Cigarette smoke increases it by quite a bit. That’s one of the reasons tobacco smoke is do deadly by sharply increasing the amount of heart disease and stroke causing plaque to be built up in your blood vessels and speeding up aging. So, if you smoke and can quit that will help lower migraines as well. Similarly, getting skilled at avoiding all second hand smoke will help lower migraines.

And, there is still more you can do to lower homocysteine! Many people eat no green, unstarchy vegetables at all and not much fresh fruit. It’s long been known that people who eat several servings of green, unstarchy vegetables and some fresh fruit each day are in MUCH better health than people who don’t. (And we now know that organic vegetables are more effective in producing good health because they have more nutrients – NOT just because they have no pesticide residue.) Plus there is even more good news for using this method to lower homocysteine. People who eat several servings of green, unstarchy vegetables and some fresh fruit each day are significantly less fat than people who do not. (Regular soft drinks stuff you with calories that do NOT make you less hungry. Eating several servings of green, unstarchy vegetables and some fresh fruit each day makes you a LOT less hungry while providing close to zero net calories. That is a huge difference.)

Several servings of green, unstarchy vegetables and some fresh fruit each day don’t just provide a lot of folic acid, the most effective B vitamin to lower homocysteine, they provide the natural version your body actually uses directly. That means several servings of green, unstarchy vegetables and some fresh fruit each day is MORE effective in lowering homocysteine than taking folic acid supplements alone.

Lastly, if you begin to exercise regularly and do the things that lower homocysteine as well, having fewer migraines is just a small part of the health benefits you’ll get. In fact, fewer migraines may be only 4 or 5 % of the health improvements you’ll experience.

Since migraines mess up your quality of life so much, they do make a good motivator though.